Heavy glass bottle. The cork is soaked through and crumbly, only saved by the sideways intervention of a screwpull worm. Deep ruby-colour core edging to amber. The nose starts a little tight and mixes faint high-toned fruit, stewing plum over soil. The first observation on the palate is the acidity – fine but forward – seems dominant but very quickly the palate fills out and shows both density and texture if strangely little flavour – very linear! Then moving from the mid-palate to the finish the wine explodes with that missing flavour and forward grainy tannin. The finish is quite long, edged with cream though there’s a suggestion of oxidation in the background somewhere.